U.S. Pat. No. 3,982,415, which is assigned to the assignee of the present invention, discloses a machine having apparatus for splining an annular thin-wall sleeve of a power transmission member by meshing die and mandrel teeth with the sleeve located therebetween such that the resultant forming thereof provides the splines. This spline forming process takes place in a rolling manner as a mandrel on which the power transmission member is mounted rotates upon movement of toothed dies in opposite directions on opposite sides of the mandrel to provide the tooth meshing. An end wall of the power transmission member is clamped against an end of the mandrel during the splining process so as to ensure precise forming of the resultant splines. Clutch hubs for automatic transmissions of road vehicles is one usage for which this spline forming process has particular utility in replacing prior impacting operations used to form clutch hub splines as discussed in the aforementioned patent.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,155,237, which is also assigned to the assignee of the present invention, discloses apparatus for automatically loading and unloading power transmission members on a toothed mandrel for splining of thin-wall sleeves thereof by meshing of die and mandrel teeth in the manner discussed above. Loading and unloading members driven by associated hydraulic cylinders are provided to cooperatively clamp and move power transmission members to be splined from a load table toward and away from the mandrel. Both cylinders are hydraulically driven during loading movement toward the mandrel and during unloading movement away from the mandrel back toward the load table. After movement of the splined power transmission member back to the load table, the loading and unloading members are moved away from each other to permit indexing of the load table for alignment of another member to be splined with the loading and unloading members, and it is thus important that the previously splined member be disengaged from both the loading and unloading members at the load table prior to this indexing so as to permit the subsequent loading of the next power transmission member.